Armies of Fantasy Warriors

Im a Proud Panda having recieved my first ever Golden Button! Although time has been short these last few weeks the project is still coming along along slowly. Having my project mentioned in the Backstage Weekender made me happy.

The Dwarves are still on the workbench. So far their armour and the orange on the clothes under their armour is done. Right now Im working on the Army Painter Ultramarine blue which is going on the linning of the armour and on their hood. Probably have a few good hours left on these miniatures.

Real life has been busy the last couple of weeks. So I’ve decide to challenge myself with my largest batch painting ever. My vacation is coming up and I’m aiming to finish the Dwarves during it. The plan is to batch paint 32 Dwarves, 16 spearmen and 16 crossbow men.

So far I’ve based and undercoated them and painted the faces, beards and started the armour. Hopefully I’ll get some more hobby time the next couple of days.

Batch painting 32 minis is challenging but so far it’s been okey.

The first Dwarven unit is finished. These are the first dwarves I’ve ever painted, as far as I can remember.

Next I’m on to the Dwarven Spearmen.

Real life has made itself present the last few weeks. Still managed to keep working on the Dwarves.

They are still getting the standard treatment of basecoat, wash and highlights.

Although, this is suppose to be a spring cleaning I could not help myself. Went on to Evilbay. Found some of Grenadier’s Julie Guthrie’s Personalities. Did manage to find the White Witch. How could I not get her? Oh, and two other minis just had to come with her too.

The Dwarves have taken front stage on the hobby table this week. This is the first time I’m painting a dwarf army. My plan is to use orange and light shades of blue as the army colors. Lets see how they turn out.

I’m closing in on having all the base colors done, following the same general process as the Orcs.

This tutorial shows the colors and procedure I’ve used for painting my Orcs. When batch painting 8 orcs were mounted on 2 wooden sticks. Each step was applied to all 16 orcs before moving on to the next step. Being mono-pose miniatures the procedure was pretty fast, even for a slow-painter like me. When reaching the second stick, eye to hand coordination felt comfortable. My speed of painting was increased incrementally from the first to sixteenth miniature. The Orc spearmen, swordsmen and bowmen were all done following the same procedure.

The colors used in this tutorial are from Army Painter (AP), Vallejo Model Color (VMC) and Vallejo Game Color (VGC)

Clean up flash and apply basing

The plastic orcs in Fantasy Warriors have a line of plastic flash running around the model where the two halves of the mold have met. It’s not any major issue, but you need to remove it. However, all Fantasy Warriors plastic miniatures have an injection point at the back of them that has to be removed. This is preferably done with a sharp scalpel or knife.

The next step is to apply basing. I use super glue and the type of sand used in small critters cages.

Undercoat and Orc skin base color

The Orc was undercoated with AP Leather Brown spray.

Then a base coat of VMC Refractive Green was applied with an AP Regiment brush.

Other base color

The other areas of details are:

• Arm cloth and pouch on the side in VMC Leather Brown using an AP Character brush
• Loincloth in Army Painter Chaotic Red with an AP Regiment brush
• Metal armband and belt buckle in VMC Copper with an AP Character brush
• Belt, sword grip and right side shoulder armour  in VMCr Flat Brown with an AP Character brush
• Sword blade and left side shoulder armour in VGC Gunmetal with and AP Character brush
• Teeth in VGC Bonewhite with an AP Detail brush
• Eyes in VMC Carmine Red with an AP Detail brush
• Base in AP Fur Brown with an AP Monster Brush

Wash and second layer Orc skin

The entire model was washed in Army Painter Strong Tone with an AP Monster brush, and then given a second Orc skin layer of Vallejo Model Color Refractive Green with an AP Character brush

Highlights

The highlights were made with:

• Skin in VMC Green Grey with an AP Detail brush
• Arm cloth and pouch on the side in VMC Leather Brown with an AP Detail brush
• Loincloth in VMC Carmine Red with an AP Character brush
• Sword blade in AP Plate Mail Metal with an AP Character brush
• Teeth in VGC Bonewhite with an AP Detail brush
• Eyes in AP Lava Orange with an AP Detail brush

Orc skin wash

Finally the Orc skin highlights were toned down with a layer of AP Green Wash with an AP Regiment brush.

So, I’ve started to clean up the Dwarves. The plastic injection point on the backs of the Fantasy Warriors orcs and dwarves are the only downside of the models. Not to much of a problem. A good scalpel solves it. Looking forward to starting with the dwarves!

Base coat and wash done on the Orc swordmen. Next step highlights. Really enjoying to paint these mono-pose miniatures.

So, a Ral Partha Orc Hero snuck into the painting line up. Had started him a while back. Being the spring clean challenge, might as well have him join the Fantasy Warriors army. Got his horns done today.

In 1996, when Grenadier Models closed down, Stratelibri the company’s italian distributor bought the U.S. molds and master sculpts. Fantasy Warriors was then re-released in a 2nd printing of the game with a new box that has a different box art, and the underline “3D Fantasy Wargame”. The 2nd printing was released by Stratelibri’s game arm Nemo Miniatures in at least an english and an italian language version. During the late 1990s Nemo Miniatures started to develop a setting called The World of Valdar, which came to a premature end when the owner of the parent company Stratelibri suddenly passed away. The 2nd printing of Fantasy Warriors would, so far, be the last printing of the game. Although the rules are still available in italian from Mirliton S.G. that bought the molds and italian rulebook in 2004.

The english version of the rules are available from EM4 miniatures, owned by Doug Cowie one of the game’s co-creators, as a free download. EM4 also has the one published (there is an unpublished one too) expansion for the game, the Fantasy Warriors Companion, also by Nick Lund. The Fantasy Warriors rulebook has army lists for Barbarians, Dwarves, Goblins, Men, Orcs, Wood Elves and Trolls and Ogres. Except for the Trolls and Ogres, the army lists contain different fantasy warrior troops, specialists, warchiefs and individuals that can be organised into proper fantasy armies. The Trolls and Ogres are separate unit entries and “are used by many armies”, without being limited to any specific type of fantasy army. The six fantasy armies are outlined according to the available range of Grenadier miniatures, which means that they have exotic units such as Dwarven Ursine cavalry, Hobgoblin infantry and Wood Elf Eagle Riders. The range of exotic units would be expanded as more Fantasy Warriors miniatures were released. The Fantasy Warriors Companion also includes army lists for Undead, Amazons, Mercenaries and High Elves. Furthermore, the Warrior Newsletter dedicated to Fantasy Warriors published army lists for Dark Elves and Ratmen. There is also a rules update, by the games author Nick Lund, with a Halfling army list. So all in all, Fantasy Warriors covers a wide range of different classical fantasy armies, that just like some of the interesting game mechanics have started to come back into fantasy miniature games of our era.

Researching Fantasy Warriors, I have discovered a game that surprises. Nick Lund introduced novel game mechanics. Grenadier Models introduced the concept of the two player starter box with miniatures and the translation of rules to markets outside of the english speaking world. I have to wonder how much Games Workshop’s development of 4th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles was a reaction to Fantasy Warriors and how much it was an internal company progression. 4th ed WHFB contained 104 miniatures, just above the 102 miniatures of Fantasy Warriors, coincidence or strategy? Why were the High Elves and Goblins in 4th ed WHFB, was the reasoning that Orcs and Dwarves were “taken” or “if we do High Elves and Goblins then all the classic fantasy races will be available in plastic” or didn’t Grenadier’s models matter at all? Similarly, Battle Masters contained 105 miniatures, including cavalry, an ogre and a Empire cannon and crew. Plastic miniatures were not new to GW at the time, but as far as I can tell the concept of a two player started box was.

Fantasy Warriors also covers the “classical” fantasy armies, but with some more distinctive units, like large cat riding Amazons, Dwarves flying on bats and Dark Elfs on condors. What it does lack is a specific game setting, with a thoroughly described world and a timeline of major events. Although, the Warrior Newsletter does contain small tidbits of game setting narratives these mostly revolve around the specific scenario. Fantasy Warriors leaves the world setting and narrative up to the player, while still retaining some narrative encouragement in the general scenario design. The absence of different scenarios is also a distinctive feature of the rules, if compared to other games, especially games released after Fantasy Warriors.

Having just scratched the surface of Fantasy Warriors, I realize that I’ll have to come back to writing in more detail about the rules and game mechanics, the range of miniatures and their style, the game supplements, the Warrior Newsletter and the Fantasy Warriors world setting. Since I didn’t even own the game in the early 1990s I have no idea of how popular or unpopular it really was. I’m curious if it had a large base of gamers and hobbyists. Was it ever a contender to become a market leader? Did the almost lack of world setting affect the games popularity? Was it a true front-runner for fantasy miniature wargames or are my conclusions off the mark? Will I eventually get to play a battle with the game?